Work Interrupted

11 am. You're in the middle of

preparing the quarterly results presentation. The phone rings. Someone wants

some data from you by next week.

Where were you-ah, the figures for

OND. Buzz...the screen shakes, and you almost jump out of your skin. Someone

wants to chat on the instant messenger. The 'Busy' sign doesn't faze her. You

cut it short, and log off.

Shyam Malhotra Now, anyone can access you anytime. You switch on the messenger and friends, colleagues all think they can drop in on you any time they want

Back to the slides. Now what were

those figures? You're finally managing to get a grip on the presentation. And

then you notice that you have new email. Without realizing it, you switch to

your email program, and the next 20 minutes are gone answering someone or the

other.

The day carries on in much the same

vein. The interruptions ensured that you took a lot longer to complete it. With

so many more ways of communicating, people communicate more! And a lot of that

stuff is not relevant. What a waste of time, money, and energy! How much? About

$588bn annually, in the US, says Basex, a company known for its expertise on

collaborative business environments. Their recent report "The Cost of Not

Paying Attention: How Interruptions Impact Knowledge Worker Productivity",

based on a survey of 1000 knowledge workers and executives, concludes that 28%

of the day is wasted because of these tech interruptions, and that adds up 28 bn

lost man hours in a year.

The telephone, the Web, e-mail, and

instant messengers were supposed to increase productivity, save costs, help

teams to collaborate better. But, every time a person is interrupted he takes up

to 15 minutes to regain the same level of concentration as before. Open door is

now open life. Anyone can access you anytime. You switch on the messenger so

that your sales team can stay in touch with you. But your friends, colleagues

all think now they can drop in any time they want. Email makes things faster and

better. But there are interruptions called spam, jokes, and corporate spam in

the guise of CCs. The Web is great to get instant info, but there are pop-up ads

to close, enticing pictures to click on, or some auction that's too good to

resist.

Not that there are no answers. There

are ways to fix interruptions. Companies have to step in and help their

employees deal with the interruptions overload they have helped usher in. One

area is managing communications.

At the individual level, each person

will have to decide for himself, set his priorities at work and use technology

that fits.

Here are a few tips to minimize

technology interruptions at work:

Mail: Don't make the mail

ping;



Check mail only a fixed number of times in a day;


Don't read casual mails as soon as they come. Store them in a "to read
later" folder;



Set appropriate filters to automatically weed out unwanted and junk mail.

Cellphone: Keep in vibrator

mode;



Set aside a time in the office to take personal calls;


Set different ring tones to identify callers;


Activate voice mail.

IM: Don't log in as a habit.

Go online only when you really need to chat;



Don't let the IM notify you every time someone comes online;


Make separate IM IDs for official and personal use. That way you will be able to
keep non-official buddies away.

Web: Turn off pop-up ads;



Don't open every eye-catching link.

Let us face it. You knew all of

these. What is needed is following the rules. After all, you should have the

right to decide how and when you want to be interrupted at work.